(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – With virtually no warning or debate, the Intelligence Authorization Act for 2015 (H.R. 4681) was rushed to the House floor and passed, containing a dangerous section which, for the first time, statutorily authorizes spying on U.S. citizens without legal process.

The law says that the intelligence community can collect, retain, and disseminate all electronic communications including voice calls [without any constitutional restrictions] on all US citizens and everyone else in the world. And they have 5 years before they are supposed to destroy the records. However, they can keep them indefinitely if they fall into several categories of interest.

It is all out in the open now. Your 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendment protections are gone. This act gives new meaning to ‘land of the free, home of the brave.’ The intelligence community isn’t doing anything in secret any more. Americans are now living in an environment much like the days of the old Stalinist Soviet Union, where the presumption was that all conversations were monitored and one takes measures to have a ‘private’ conversations.

So turn up your radio or turn the water on in the sink and watch what you say on the phone or Facebook, even casual remarks on twitter may come back to haunt you in the future. Don’t believe me, I have pasted the relivant parts of the bill below this story. Still don’t believe it? Just go to www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/4681/text and read it from the horse’s mouth.